


Ceci n’est pas un conte (This is not a story)

by hannasus



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Post-Season/Series 03 Finale, Romance, Season/Series 03-04 Hiatus, porsches and sunsets, road trip fic drive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-04
Updated: 2015-08-21
Packaged: 2018-04-02 18:42:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4070512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannasus/pseuds/hannasus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens after they drive off into the sunset. A series of scenes from Oliver and Felicity's hiatus road trip, each inspired by a different literary quote.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dawn

**“I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.”**

**_—Pride and Prejudice,_ Jane Austen**

 

“When did you first realize you loved me?” Felicity asks one morning as the ocean breeze stirs the curtains through the open window of their beachfront room. She’s lying on her stomach, her head a warm weight on Oliver’s shoulder as her fingers trace formless shapes over his stomach.

He closes his eyes and lays a hand on her hair, smiling at the memory of their earliest encounters. The determined brightness of her smile. The knowing gaze that saw right through him. The way his practiced facade always seemed to slip in her presence, leaving him tongue-tied and breathless, like a teenager in the throes of first love.

He wishes he could say he knew back then. That he recognized it for what it was right away. But that would be dishonest—it would be giving himself far too much credit.

“Well?” Felicity huffs impatiently, tapping him on the chest.

“It’s complicated,” he says, capturing her hand with his. “I have to think about it.”

Her fingers interlace perfectly with his, as if they were made to be that way. “I don’t see how it’s complicated,” she says turning her head to peer up at him. “I can tell you the second I fell head over heels for you.”

“When?” he asks, running his thumb over the delicate skin on the inside of her wrist. He pauses when he finds her pulse, slow and steady and warm.

“When you handed me a bullet-riddled laptop and an outrageous lie,” she says, grinning smugly. “Only love could make me stupid enough to help you after that.”

Instead of laughing, Oliver holds her a little tighter.

She presses a soothing kiss into his chest. “Your turn, Mr. Procrastinator.”

“Russia,” he tell her honestly, although he knows she won’t like it. “Kind of.”

She retracts her hand from his and pushes herself upright. “Kind of?” she echoes, looking down on him disapprovingly. “Also … _Russia?_ Seriously? When you slept with she who is not to be named?”

“Isabel.” Saying her name is like prodding a sore tooth. He can’t seem to help himself, no matter how unpleasant it is. The pain is only what he deserves.

“I said she was not to be named,” Felicity chastises, tweaking his nipple hard enough to make him wince. “And _ew._ ” She lays her head back down on him with her face turned away.

He briefly considers confessing that it was _her_ face he saw when he was inside Isabel, _her_ name that traitorously spilled from his lips. But that feels like a little too much truth. He hasn’t yet learned to trust this thing between them enough to test it with such an uncomfortable admission. It’s too new, still. Too fragile. Maybe one day he’ll be able to tell her that secret and they’ll laugh about it. But today he’s still too terrified of screwing all this up.

He’s never been any good at love, you see.

Oliver presses his face into the top of her head. Her hair smells like seawater and coconut sunscreen. Like perfect happiness. “It was afterwards,” he says. “When you came to my room.” Which is close enough to the truth. An admission as much as an omission.

“Really not all that much better,” she grumbles genially.

He offers his hand back in restitution and she accepts it indulgently. “It was seeing your face when you found out,” he explains, because this is the part that matters. “Realizing that I’d disappointed you … that’s when I finally understood that I had something precious to lose.”

She sighs theatrically. “Not exactly the romantic anecdote I was fishing for, lover.”

He makes a face, ruffles her hair. “Don’t call me that, it’s creepy.”

Her laughter vibrates through his chest. “ _Lover,_ ” she says, drawing the syllables out to taunt him. “Lo-verrr.”

“Anyway, that wasn’t when I fell in love with you,” he clarifies. “It was just when I _realized_ I was in love with you. Because—and I’m not sure you know this about me—I can occasionally be stubborn and obtuse.”

She lifts her head and gives him a look of mock surprise. “No!”

“It’s true,” he says solemnly.

“So when did you actually fall in love with me?” she asks, resting her chin on his chest. “Let me guess, when you were sleeping with McKenna? Or was it Helena?”

He digs a finger into her ribs, where he has recently discovered she’s ticklish. “Stop naming my exes while we’re naked.”

“You started it,” she protests, squealing with laughter and wriggling against him.

He’s never loved a sound as much as he loves her laughter. It makes him feel weightless and untarnished. His hands settle on her hips, pulling her toward him again, and he winds an arm around her waist to keep her there. “Do want to know or not?”

Sighing contentedly, she turns onto her side, pressing the curve of her back against him. “Mmm,” she says, burrowing into the pillow. “Tell me.”

He curls himself around her and murmurs the answer into the back of her neck: “Lian Yu.”

She’s quiet for a moment, thinking about it. “Which time? Because for a remote, unapproachable island, we sure seem to make a lot of trips back and forth.”

His fingers trace the curve of her hip, raising goosebumps on her skin. “When you and Diggle came looking for me after the Undertaking.”

“Was it the landmine?” she asks, a smile in her voice. “Do you have a Princess Leia fetish?”

“Yes, but that’s unrelated to this.”

Her ribcage shakes with laughter. “Okay, definitely filing that away for future reference.”

He nuzzles into her hair, breathing deep. “It was after the landmine. When you yelled at me for not offering you water.”

She twists in his arms so she’s facing him again, her eyes wide and amused. “Seriously? That’s all it took? I would have yelled at you for not offering me things long before that if I’d known you’d find it so irresistible.”

Reverently, he reaches up to brush her hair back from her face. “I was in hell on earth and you showed up in the middle of it and yelled at me for not acting happy to see you. You made me smile for the first time in months.” His thumb drags a path across her lower lip. “I didn’t stand a chance after that.”

She puckers her lips and presses a kiss against the pad of his thumb. “I jumped out of an airplane for you and almost got blown up by a landmine, but it was the yelling at you that made you fall in love with me?”

He can’t explain it, so he doesn’t try. There’s a beam of morning sunlight caught in her hair and she looks so warm and lovely, stretched out catlike beside him. The knowledge of how unworthy he is burns its way up his esophagus.

She smirks at him. “You realize telling me this is almost definitely going to backfire on you in a big way?”

A smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. “I am aware.” He nestles against her throat, kissing his way down to her collarbone.

“So … wait Lian Yu, that was like, months before Russia. It took you that long after you fell in love with me to _realize_ that you had fallen in love with me?”

He pulls far back enough to raise an eyebrow at her. “I thought we’d already established that I can be obtuse.”

She taps him lightly on the tip of his nose. “It’s a good thing you’re pretty, mister.”

Outside, the cries of gulls mingle with the gentle roar of the waves, and Oliver swallows against a sudden, overwhelming sense of gratitude for this perfect, easy moment. Just the two of them, together. Happy. An island unto themselves.

His chest feels heavy with the weight of it, and he reaches for her, pressing a trembling kiss to her forehead. “I’m sorry it took me so long to figure it out. I’m sorry I kept us from having this sooner.”

Felicity lays her hand on his heart and he breathes out, calmed by her touch. “We have it now,” she whispers into his skin. “That’s all that matters.”

Oliver closes his eyes, concentrates on the lulling sound of the sea, and tries like hell to believe her.


	2. Storms

**“The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order.”**

**— ** _Beloved_** , Toni Morrison**

 

He is Oliver.

He actually has to remind himself sometimes, in the deep chasm of the night, when everything is silence and the darkness has seeped into his bones. He’s been undone so many times that it’s hard to remember who he is, or where he’s ended up. To recognize what’s left of him.

In those irrational moments between dreaming and waking his name is an elusive, transitory thing, like a shooting star or a firefly glimpsed at the edge of his vision. It slips away from him, leaving him bereft, and he comes awake in a panic, reaching out blindly for something to hold onto.

And then she stirs beside him.

Felicity.

The solid warmth of her at his side. The reassuring cadence of her breathing. The fragrance of sex and sweat and hotel shampoo lingering on the sheets.

And he remembers.

He is Oliver.

He curls himself around her and she shifts to accommodate him, making cute little grumbling noises without coming fully awake. Her body molds itself to his like they’re two parts of the same whole and he relaxes again, enveloped in the protective circle of her love.

He is Oliver, and he is with Felicity.

* * *

She is entrancing by candlelight.

They’re at a cozy little Italian place a half mile from their hotel. When she gazes at him across the table, cheeks flushed from the bottle of cheap Chianti they’re sharing, he can almost forget about the last time he was in an Italian restaurant with her, and how that ended.

Almost, but not quite.

His shoulders are knotted with tension and his eyes have been darting toward the door all evening, but she simply smiles at him after they finish their tiramisu, a teasing glint in her eye that is both a promise and challenge, and says, “Take me to bed.”

He does.

He is addicted to her. To the taste of her skin. The soft curve of her breasts.

The way her fingernails dig into his back when he moves between her thighs.

Felicity. He whispers her name into the curve of her throat like a prayer. In devotion and supplication.

She is his humanity. She reminds him that he is no more than a man. And that the man he is is good enough for her.

Oliver. She shouts his name when she comes. Like a command or an invocation. Like she is conjuring him into being.

He falls apart every time, and she gathers him up and puts him back together

“I love you,” he whispers hoarsely, shaking in her arms.

She threads her fingers through his hair and says, “I know.”

* * *

There’s a scent of rain in the air, lightning in the distance. He can feel the change in air pressure like a knife at the base of his skull. His hands tighten on the balcony railing, but he doesn’t look away. He can’t.

Storms make him uneasy. They have ever since the night the _Gambit_ went down.

In every rumble of thunder he hears the boat rending itself to pieces. In every flash of lightning he sees Sara reaching out for him, wide-eyed with fear. And then his stomach’s lurching like he’s back there on the sea, being tossed and battered by the waves.

The first fat raindrops begin to fall. They pick up speed, escalating from a shower to a downpour in the space of a few moments, and his heartbeat races in time with the torrent. He backs up to the doorway, out of range of the spatter, but he doesn’t go inside.

Behind him, Felicity speaks his name softly.

He turns toward her. Smiles a little too hard, trying not to let her to see his pain. His instinct is to shield her from the broken parts of him.

But she knows; she always knows.

Without a word, she comes up behind him and wraps her arms around his waist. He grabs onto her like a life preserver, his fingers digging into her forearms.

There’s a hurricane raging around him but she is the eye of the storm: calm and quiet and safe. The stillness at the center of the maelstrom. His safe harbor. His shelter.

The thunder rumbles louder and she presses her cheek against his shoulder blade, holding him even tighter. They stand there together watching the rain, her heart beating against his back, and for once it’s not so bad.

The storm will pass and this time when it’s gone he will still be standing on dry land. It’s possible to believe that now, with her by his side.

Her hand travels up to his chest, and she lays her palm over his heart like a pledge. “You’re okay,” she murmurs, pressing a kiss into his back.

He rests his hand over hers, tangling their fingers together, and says, “I know.”

* * *

He has never been shy about his body. But he was a little surprised—pleasantly so—to discover that she isn’t shy about hers.

She sleeps in the nude more often than not. Rarely bothers to reach for her discarded clothing after their lovemaking. Strolls around their room utterly, gloriously exposed to him.

He has explored and mapped every freckle on her body, planting his flag on the surface of her skin with reverent kisses, claiming each of them as his homeland. They are all precious to him, unique and perfect in their own way, but the freckle on the back of her right thigh, just below the curve of her ass, is by far his favorite. Sometimes, when she’s lying on her stomach—on the beach or at the pool or in their bed—he’ll catch a glimpse of it and he can’t control himself—he has to press his lips to it.

(The urge to touch her is constant; he wages an eternal war to suppress it when they’re in public. It’s like he needs to keep reminding himself that this is real—that _she’s_ real—and that he has been granted permission to touch her, in any way his heart desires.)

It’s always his undoing, that one little freckle. He’ll throw himself at her with abandon and she’ll squeal and squirm beneath him, her laughter only fueling his need as she futilely tries to swat him away. She is a tiny thing, easily held in place by his broad hands, and her protestations are playful and halfhearted. (She could easily still him into submission with a single word or a glance; her power over him is absolute.) He nuzzles against the back of her thigh, sucks at the skin around that exquisite freckle, and thinks: _I am blessed, I am blessed, I am blessed._

(She’ll get him back later. She has long since discovered his most ticklish spot—at the corner of his jaw, just below his ear—and she takes a particular pleasure in using it against him. He’ll writhe beneath her as she sits astride him, torturing him with flicks of her tongue and daring him to throw her off. He never will; he would gladly submit to being tortured by her for an eternity. Gladly.)

* * *

Every morning she massages cocoa butter into the brand on his back, salving away the sting of Ra’s mark.

He is not shy about his body, but he is sensitive about his scars. Every one of them represents a sin. A moment he wishes he could undo. A mistake he can never take back. A lesson learned the hard way.

She has lovingly examined every inch of every scar with fingers, lips, and tongue, smoothing away his unease with her touch. She presses a smile against the bullet-wound in his arm, laughs into the fresh cut across his palm, and worships the scar left by Yao Fei’s arrow with her mouth.

Never once does she question him about them or prod him for explanations. But her unwavering trust in him invites confidence, and he finds himself wanting to tell her everything. Gradually, he begins to unburden himself, casting off old ghosts as he reveals his secrets to her, one scar at a time. She listens intently to every confession, tracing the damaged skin with her fingers, and grants him absolution with her kisses.

One night, a month into their trip, she presses her face to the ragged wound left by Ra’s sword and cries until her body is racked with violent, devastating sobs. He holds her while she falls apart, and then he gathers her up and puts her back together.

“I love you,” she gasps hoarsely, shaking in his arms.

He threads his fingers through her hair and says, “I know.”

 

 

 


	3. Wanderers

**“We cross our bridges as we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and the presumption that once our eyes watered.”**

**  
— _Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead_ , Tom Stoppard**

 

They’ve been at the little hotel on the beach for three weeks now, and they’ve been the three happiest weeks of Oliver’s life. He’s pretty sure he could stay here forever, in this dinky hotel room with its polyester bedspread and mildewed shower curtain, with the sound of the surf a constant, soothing presence in the background.

It feels like he’s been running nonstop for the last eight years. In a way he’s been running even longer than that. Running from his parents, from school, from responsibility and commitment. From a version of himself he didn’t like very much.

Not anymore. For the for the first time in years he actually feels comfortable in his own skin. Content to stay in one place and just let life wash over him.

As long as that place is with Felicity. As long as that life is with her.

He’s never known peace like this before. He’s never felt so calm, so light. All those years straining against invisible bonds, and it’s only now that he’s stopped running that he’s finally free.

Passivity is a new thing for him, and he’s embraced it wholeheartedly. He could happily stay in bed all day, doing nothing whatsoever, but Felicity is not good at stillness. She prefers to be moving. Doing. She’s trying to let some of those habits go and just _be,_ for his sake. But it chafes at her sometimes, and she’ll rise from their bed in search of some mundane task to keep herself busy.

Lounging contentedly in the warm spot she’s left behind, Oliver watches her move around the room—checking her phone, sorting through her luggage, painting her nails—and wonders how he ever got so lucky.

He’d be happy to stay here forever, but he doesn’t _need_ to stay here. Home is wherever she is. Her happiness is his happiness, and he will gladly follow her wherever she wants to go.

They pack up and move on the very next day.

* * *

In Portland, Felicity falls in love with a puppy, and Oliver falls in love with the sight of Felicity with a puppy.

“Isn’t he adorable?” she squeals, cradling the wriggling pit mix her arms. The look on her face is unfiltered bliss, and it hits Oliver hard, right between the ribs.

“He’s already neutered and current on all his shots,” one of the rescue volunteers says hopefully, coming to stand alongside them. “You could fill out an adoption application and take him home with you today.”

“I wish,” Felicity sighs, setting the puppy back in the crate with its litter mates. “We’re just passing through town on vacation, we can’t get a dog right now.”

 _Right now._ Those two simple words make Oliver’s heart sing. The implication being that sometime in their future there will come a day when they _can_ get a dog together. He wants that future so bad he can taste it.

“What?” Felicity says when she catches him staring at her with a dopey grin on his face.

“Nothing,” he replies, kissing her lightly on the lips. “I was just thinking about how much I love you.”

She rolls her eyes affectionately. “You’re hopeless.”

Quite the opposite, actually. He’s never had this much hope before.

* * *

They spend a whole day hiking Dog Mountain. Felicity clings to Oliver’s hand when the trail gets steep, but she never complains and she stubbornly refuses his offers to turn back. At their first glimpse of the summit meadow bursting with yellow balsamroot, she gasps aloud.

“Was it worth it?” he asks, slipping his arm around her waist.

“Mmmm,” she sighs, leaning into him.

When they finally reach the top she throws her arms around his neck, breathless and rosy-cheeked, and kisses him triumphantly. They stand arm-in-arm at the summit, gazing out over the Columbia River Gorge, and bask in the beauty spread out before them.

After a romantic picnic of trail mix and protein bars, Oliver leads Felicity back down by the less scenic route, where the slopes are gentler and there are fewer loose rocks to worry her. They take their time, stopping frequently to rest or admire the sights, because they’re not on anyone’s timetable but their own.

Back at their bed and breakfast that evening, they take advantage of the hot tub to soothe Felicity’s sore muscles. She settles between Oliver’s legs, leaning back against his chest, and they share a bottle of chardonnay under the stars. When she falls asleep in his arms with her head tucked under his chin, he carries her back to their room, dries her off, and tucks her into bed.

She sleeps until noon the next day. Oliver wakes at dawn (he’s long since lost the knack of sleeping late) and forgoes his morning jog in favor of watching her sleep.

* * *

After a week in the mountains, Felicity says she misses the sound of the ocean, so they pack up the car and drive to Lincoln City.

They take long walks on the beach every day, clambering over the rocks hand-in-hand, searching for sea life in the eddies and pools below.

“Make a wish,” Felicity says, pointing out a big yellow starfish.

“I don’t think it works with fish,” Oliver says, laughing.

She wraps her hands around his arm and rests her chin on his shoulder. “It works if you believe it works. Now come on, close your eyes and make wish.”

He already feels like all his wishes have come true, so his wish is a simple one: for everything to stay just as it is right now.

“What’d you wish for?” she asks, poking him in the ribs.

He catches her fingers and brings them to his lips. “If I tell you it won’t come true.”

* * *

They walk among the old-growth giants in Redwood National Park and make love in a tent on the beach at Sonoma Coast State Park.

In San Francisco they eat Chinese food and stroll through Haight-Ashbury and hike up to Battery Spencer to watch the sun set on the Golden Gate Bridge. The cool temperatures and the fog remind them too much of Starling, though, so they only linger a few days in the city.

The drive through Big Sur takes them almost a whole day because they keeping stopping every few miles to admire the view and look at the seals sunning themselves on the beaches below.

“What about Central City?” Oliver asks when they pass the first sign for the turnoff.

Felicity lays her hand over his as she shakes her head no. “I don’t want to share you with anyone.”

They keep on driving.

* * *

There’s a comics convention coming up in Coast City that Felicity’s dying to go to, so they head down that way and hang out for a few weeks in a shabby little motel a few blocks from the beach.

Oliver likes it there. It’s big enough that it doesn’t feel small, and small enough that it doesn’t feel big. Every day is sunny and seventy degrees, and everyone they meet seems laid back and happy.

It feels like the farthest place in the world from Starling City.

The comics convention is confusing and overwhelming. The crowds make Oliver edgy, but Felicity’s so clearly loving every second of it that he tries to relax and have a good time, even though he doesn’t understand most of it.

“I’m so glad that Joss Whedon’s going back to writing comic books!” she babbles excitedly as they exit one of the panels. “I really think that’s where his passion lies. Maybe it will re-energize him creatively.”

“Who’s Joss Whedon?” Oliver asks.

She pats his cheek fondly. “Oh, my sweet summer child.”

* * *

They stumble on another dog adoption fair at a park near their motel. Oliver smiles as Felicity makes a beeline straight for the puppies.

“We could do it, you know,” he says, scratching the floppy-eared mutt in her arms. “They allow pets at the motel, we could get a puppy if you wanted.”

Felicity laughs. “Yeah, right.”

“Why not?”

“You’re not going to want a puppy running around in the Arrow cave.”

He frowns. “There is no Arrow cave anymore.”

“But there will be,” she says with absolute confidence. “When we go back we’ll rebuild and start over, and it wouldn’t be practical to have a puppy running around underfoot.”

Oliver doesn’t say anything.

* * *

There’s a cozy little bungalow for rent near their motel. Oliver spots it one morning on his run and he sort of falls in love with its tacky yellow siding and bright orange trim.

It’s a little dilapidated but there’s nothing wrong with it he can’t fix himself, and he’s oddly excited about the prospect of taking on home repair projects. It seems so domestic. So ordinary. So settled. He’s never had that kind of life before, and he wants to know what it’s like.

He tells Felicity about the bungalow a few days later.

“But I like this motel,” she says, running a comb through her wet hair. “It’s close to the beach.” She’s just gotten out of the shower and she smells like mangoes and coconuts.

“The bungalow’s only a block farther from the beach,” he says. “And it’s got a deck out back with a barbecue grill.”

She smiles at him in the mirror. “You don’t even barbecue.”

“I could,” he says, lifting his chin. “If we had a grill.”

On the island he cooked his own kills on a handmade spit over an open fire. Flipping burgers on a charcoal grill with a cold beer in his hand? Seems like something he could learn to enjoy.

He crosses his arms and leans against the doorframe. “The landlord says he’ll replace the fridge if we sign a six-month lease.”

Felicity sets the comb on the counter and turns around to face him. “You talked to the landlord already?”

“I went and looked at it yesterday.”

She frowns. “Why didn’t you talk to me first?”

“I wanted to surprise you.” That’s a lie. He didn’t talk to her about it because he was afraid he knew what she’d say.

“With a house?”

“I like it here, Felicity.” He looks down at his bare feet on the scuffed linoleum floor and shakes his head slightly.

“Oliver?”

“I don’t want to go back,” he says quietly.

She moves closer and nudges against him until he uncrosses his arms to make a space for her. Her hands wind around his waist and she rests her head on his chest, right above his heart.

“Then we won’t go back.”

* * *

They sign a six-month lease on the bungalow the next day.

The floors are vaguely slanty, the toilet runs, and there may or may not be a mouse living behind the stove, but it’s all theirs.

It’s perfect.


End file.
